It was announced this week that the two groups have joined forces, with a combined advice force of 100.

That made it a “good-sized” group in the market, Russell Hutchinson, director of Quality Product Research, said.

“The long-run trend is as the world gets more complicated things like the cost of technology in business increase a business’s fixed costs.”

When fixed costs rose, that tended to lead to larger advice businesses, he said.

Hutchinson said it was likely there would be more.

Regulation was pointing to increasingly big advice firms, he said.

Recent consultation documents from the code working group developing the new code of conduct talked about businesses having internal compliance officers. “The scale of business required before it has enough fat to have an internal compliance officer is large. Things are pushing in the direction of larger businesses.”

He said while large advice businesses could still be independent, the advisers within them would usually be expected to toe the company line.

Peter Cave, managing director of Camelot said the two organisations were working through their agreements with their advisers.

Lifetime advisers have usually been on individual contracts whereas Camelot advisers have worked on salaries. Cave said there would be a discussion with each adviser about which model they wanted to work under.

The business would then monitor how the rules for financial advice providers’ systems evolved. If changes were needed to their systems and processes for engaging advisers, they would be made next year.

All groups would watch to see what the future would be like under the new advice regime, he said.

Lifetime and Camelot would be able to get to the next level of their businesses’ evolution much faster as a combined effort, he said.

The two business models were complementary because they were driven by adviser collaboration, focused on being client-centric and had a desire not to “sell out” to big institutions. 

Other businesses might also have been a fit, he said, but Lifetime was in the market with a model that worked with Camelot’s.

Camelot has also merged with Central Brokers Insurance, adding Mike O’Donnell and Michelle Blacktop to the group.

The business had a focus on the employee market, where the group saw opportunities to provide a holistic planning service for employees, Cave said.